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Corsair creates a gaming tournament
WE were informed that Corsair wants to make a gaming tournament. It likes the fact that Abit had some nice success with it and therefore it acquired some of ex-Abit people to create this event. Corsair decided to call this event Kode5 and thinks of it as a revolution. Of course it is a revolution as the winner teams from sixteen countries will join forces and cross their swords in the motherland of China.
Even if the competition is on the other side of the planet, it’s great to see Corsair putting something like this together. Read all about it at The Inquirer.
Acxiom database hacker jailed for 8 years
Prosecutors described the case as the “largest ever invasion and theft of personal data” ever tried. In court, Levine and Snipermail.com were accused of stealing 1.6bn customer records containing details of the names, addresses and emails of millions of Americans from Acxiom databases during a total of 137 hack attacks between January and July 2003. He was not accused of involvement in identity theft but some of the data was resold to a broker for use in a spamming campaign.
1.6 Billion records stolen and he get’s only 8 years? That’s hardly a punishment when you put things in to perspective. Hopefully they have updated their security since then, though. Read more at The Register.
Teen Arrested After MySpace.com Posting
A 16-year-old boy was arrested Wednesday after postings on the popular Web site MySpace.com allegedly showed him holding handguns, authorities said. The teen was being held at a juvenile detention center facing three misdemeanor charges of juvenile possession of a handgun, said district attorney spokeswoman Pam Russell. He is due in court Feb. 27.
It serves the idiot right, and goes to show once again that whatever you post on your blog can, and will be used against you. Read more at Yahoo News.
Canadian college curbs Wi-Fi due to health risks
A small Canadian university has ruled out campus-wide wireless Internet access because its president fears the system’s electromagnetic forces could pose a risk to students’ health. Lakehead University, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, has only a limited Wi-Fi connections at present, in places where there is no fiber-optic Internet connection. And that, according to president Fred Gilbert, is just fine.
Well.. ouch. It would suck to be on a campus with your laptop and not be able to go online. Read more at Yahoo News.
Apple’s music store: Over 1 billion served
At about 9:40 p.m. PST Wednesday, the company’s online counter reached the 1 billion mark. For several minutes before the online counter crossed the threshhold, about five songs per second were being tallied, but with about 50,000 to go, the counter suddenly jumped to 1 billion and stopped.
This is quite an accomplishment.. 1 Billion.. wow. Whoever bought the final song will be a happy camper with those prizes. Read more at News.com.
Google unveils Web page creator
Google Page Creator, which is in beta, has sample layouts and lets people type in content, upload images and publish their pages, without knowing HTML. People can create multiple linked pages and are allowed 100MB of storage on the service.
What doesn’t Google want to develop? It will be intereting to see if they span this out to allow people to create full fledged sites, because 100MB is usually more than enough for a personal site. You can read the full posting at News.com.
NGOHQ Birthday Contest
The 23rd of February marks a very important birthday in history. No I’m not talking about Dakota Fanning, but rather NGOHQ. That’s right everybody, NGOHQ is one year old today. In celebration we want to go against tradition and GIVE presents away rather than receive them. Set yourself for another great NGOHQ giveaway!
It’s not very difficult to enter, but you may want to start stretching your fingers, because you want to get ready for posting! Check out the full contest rules and prize line-up at NGOHQ.
Corsair Nautilus500 External Watercooling Kit Defines a New Generation of Watercooling Solutions
Fremont, CA (February 22, 2006) – Corsair® Memory, Inc., a worldwide leader in high performance memory products, took its acclaimed watercooling product line to a new level today with the release of the Nautilus500™. As the latest generation of external watercooling units, the Nautilus500 boasts the industry’s easiest installation procedure while delivering chilling performance of 30% more efficiency compared to air cooling.
You can read the full press release here.
Hardware Roundup for Feb. 23
The new Corsair water cooling kit has been released and a few websites have the first looks! Hexus had this to say about the kit: “The Corsair Nautilus500 is the simplest watercooling system we’ve come across. The external, all-in-one nature, carried on over from the HydroCool series, means that you don’t have to mix and match parts; the hard work is done for you.” PC Perspective and HotHardware also take the new cooler for a test drive.
If you like your computer cases to be expensive, then you will want to check out AnandTech and Bit-Tech today. Each look at the new CM Stacker 830 from Cooler Master, and Anand pits their case against the Thermaltake Tai Chi. Both of these cases are packed to the brim with features, but the price always holds me back. Speaking of expensive, Tech Report takes a hard look at two great Opteron CPU’s, the low end and top end Dual Core. They found that the 180 beats the Pentium D 950 across the board in all of their benchmarks.
- Cooler Master CMStacker 830 – Bit-Tech
- TT Tai Chi vs. CMStacker 830 – AnandTech
- Vizo Opera Media Enclosure – Pro-Clockers
- Zalman HD160 HTPC – Red & Blackness
Cases & Enclosures
- Corsair Nautilus 500 – Hexus
- Corsair Nautilus 500 – HotHardware
- Corsair Nautilus 500 – PC Perspective
- Swiftech H20-120FB Rev. 3 & Danger Den Acetal Maze4 GPU Block – 3D Xtreme
Cooling
- AMD’s Opteron 165 and 180 Processors – Tech Report
Motherboards & CPU’s
- 3Dconnexion SpaceTraveler – XYZ Computing
- Icemat Siberia Black Headset – techFEAR
- Logitech G7 Laser Cordless Mouse – Virtual-Hideout
- Plantronics Pulsar 590A Bluetooth Headset – Think Computers
- Steel Series 5H USB – Design Technica
- Thermaltake Purepower Power Station 520W – Legit Reviews
Peripherals & Power Supplies
- ASUS Extreme N6600GT Silencer – Legit Reviews
- Asus EAX1800XT TOP – 512MB – Xtreme Computing
- Powercolor X1300 128mb PCIE – XS Reviews
- PowerColor 128MB Radeon X800 GTO – Big Bruin
Video Cards & Monitor
- A Beginner’s Guide to Air Cooling Your Smokin Hot Computer – Bona Fide Reviews
- Fedora Core 5 Benchmarks – Phoronix
- Mainstream System Building Guide – OCIA
- VooDoo PC Aria Media Center – HardOCP
Etcetera & Contests
Turning Video Games Into A Professional Sport
In the past, we’ve noted that videogames are increasingly similar to sports, even to the point of sponsorship deals. It appears that one firm is really trying to build up the concept of video games as a sport, and has been able to raise $10 million to make it so. Basically, it looks like the company just puts on tournaments. While that’s something, that’s a bit short of turning video games into a real professional sport. For it to reach that level, it would seem like there needs to be more of a focus on adding the “spectator” part to “spectator sport.” Are people (outside of other gamers) really going out of their way to follow these players or attend the various events?
There are some interesting points here. While professional gaming is becoming a big thing, it’s doubtful that people will run out and buy jerseys and posters with Thresh or Fata1ty avatars! Check out the posting and comments at Tech Dirt.
Hollywood hails shutdown of music-sharing server
Swiss and Belgian police have shut down a major component of the eDonkey file-sharing network, used mainly to trade copies of copyrighted movies and music, the Motion Picture Association said on Wednesday. Razorback 2 was the biggest server on the eDonkey peer-to-peer (P2P) network, which transfers data from user to user. Music companies have blamed P2P piracy for causing a drastic downturn in sales, and Hollywood is trying to prevent a similar impact on the movie business.
Ouch, that’s quite a hard hit. Of course, this will not likely stop anyone from stealing movies or music, they will just migrate to BitTorrent. Head over to Yahoo.com for the full news posting.
Windows bumps Unix as top server OS
Computer makers sold $17.7 billion worth of Windows servers worldwide in 2005 compared with $17.5 billion in Unix servers, IDC analyst Matthew Eastwood said of the firm’s latest Server Tracker market share report. “It’s the first time Unix was not top overall since before the Tracker started in 1996.”
This comes as a shock to me; I had figured that UNIX had the demanding lead. Linux and others are not far behind though. For the full story, visit News.com.
Partial Victory for Perfect 10?
Perfect 10 is likely to succeed in proving that Google directly infringes its copyright by creating and displaying thumbnail copies of its photographs. Perfect 10’s copyright infringement case may take years to wend its way through the courts. But a victory could hamstring image search, along with video and audio search services.
Bah, the only thing I see this case doing is making even more people use the Google image search to find Perfect 10 pictures. Check out the full posting at Slashdot.
Teenager Wins Email Suit Against City of Kokomo
Recently, a 16 year old sued the city of Kokomo, Indiana for access to an email list that he suspected the mayor was mis-using for political purposes. Despite the mayor’s refusal to give in, the teenager won the case. The city will have to pay not only for the expensive attorneys they hired, but may have to compensate the 16 year old’s pro-bono counsel.
Ahh, it’s great to see such young people take on entire cities! Head on over to Slashdot for all the info.
OCZ Technology Unveils Next Generation DDR2-1000 (1GHz) Solution to be Showcased
OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the release of the PC2-8000 Gold XTC DDR2 Series designed to run 1GHz+ speeds to deliver optimal memory performance on the latest Intel platforms. The launch of the new OCZ Gold DDR2-1000 solution will allow all users to achieve the greatest range of memory bandwidth, consequently enabling a superior computer gaming experience and enhanced overall system performance with all applications. OCZ will showcase the PC2-8000 Gold XTC series at CeBIT 2006 in Hannover, Germany to accompany the next generation platform releases that take place there annually.
You can check out the full release right here.
Nikon Announces COOLPIX S6
Mississauga, ON, February 21, 2006 – Nikon Canada Inc. today announced the COOLPIX S6; an exciting, attractively styled camera built for sharing your digital photographic enjoyment with others. With a brand new, super-slim, wave-surface design, COOLPIX S6 looks as good as it performs.
You can read the full release right here.
Why You Should Not Attempt a "Do It Yourself" Data Recovery
Many people do not understand the delicacy of the internal components of a hard drive. A hard drive should never be opened unless in a clean room environment. Inside the drive, there are platters which hold the data. These platters are made of either light aluminum alloy, glass or ceramic and are coated with a magnetizable substance.
This is an informative, yet small article on the cons of trying to recover data yourself. I tend to always run to recovery software, because I don’t consider any of my data so important that I would want to pay a professional to do it for me. HDD Saver points out why even using Recovery software can hurt your chances of data recovery.
Hardware Roundup for Feb. 22
Tired of your bland thumb drive? XYZ is taking a look at a slew of new thumb drives from Mimobot that are far from ordinary. Even though each one comes preloaded with some cool stuff, expect to pay ‘designer’ prices. Game Pyre is taking a look at the ASROCK 939NF4G, which proves to be a good motherboard overall, but the lack of good software and support hurt the overall score. Phoronix takes the new Cedega version for a spin to see how games running through Linux emulation can keep up to their XP counterparts. I haven’t played around with Cedega for quite some time, but it looks to have come a long way!
- S-10000S S-Store Series – Techniz
- Sansun Bat Computer Case – Hi-Tech Reviews
- Zalman HD160 HTPC Case *Exclusive* – DV Hardware
Cases & Enclosures
- Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 Heatsink – Pro-Clockers
- FrozenCPU ThermalRock Dragon Alphacool – Virtual-Hideout
Cooling
- Crucial Ballistix 1GB Kit PC4000 LED (BL2KIT6464L505) Memory – OC Inside
- Mimobot Flash USB Flash Drive – XYZ Computing
- Seagate Momentus 5400.3 160GB 2.5″ – Viper Lair
Memory & Storage
- Altec Lansing inMotion iM716 Portable HD Audio System – Bona Fide Reviews
- Coolermaster RealPower SLI RS-550ACLY – Technic3D
- Saitek Audio A-200 2.1 Portable Speaker System – Think Computers
- Ultra Products X-Connect 2 550W PSU – Big Bruin
Peripherals & Power Supplies
- XFX GeForce 7800 GS AGP Extreme Edition – Guru3D
Video Cards & Monitor
- 2006 Home Video Preview – Design Technica
- Cedega v5.1 + NVIDIA – Phoronix
- HighSpeed PC HSPC Tech Station – ModTheBox
- OCZ Gold GX XTC 2GB Dual Channel DDR Kit Contest – OCIA
- Shuttle’s XPC SN21G5 Barebones System – Tech Report
Etcetera & Contests
Why AMD renamed the Socket M2 to AM2
We managed to get confirmation that AMD actually had some copyright problems and that it could not use socket M. The alternative was to add an additional letter A and everybody was cool with that.
Fair enough I suppose, but AM2 sounds so.. odd. Maybe since it’s because launched on June 6, it should be renamed to M666. That should go over quite well. Check out the full posting at The Inq.
BFG 7900 GTX 512 to launch on the 9th of March
We know that 7900 GTX 512 is set to have a MSRP of $599 we don’t know why Nvidia priced this product cheaper, it makes us happy for the consumers but it also makes us wonder about the performance. The last flagship card was MSRP at $649. 99 resulting with at least 699.99 retail price at most of the etailers.
Just around the corner! It will be interesting to see the final clock speed and whether we are stuck with 24 pipes. It’s going to have to be one heck of a card to beat ATI’s top offering. Head on over to The Inquirer for the full posting.
AOL to launch AIM for business
AOL is to launch an instant messaging (IM) service aimed at business users, the internet giant confirmed today. Teaming up with WebEx Communications, the new service is due to be unveiled before June, although pricing has yet to be confirmed. Currently knows as “AIM Pro”, the IM service will come in two flavours – a professional edition for home workers and SMEs, and one geared for large corporations.
We currently have no idea what makes these versions better suited for businesses, but the pricing schemes will be interesting to see. Check out the full article at The Register.
Windows Vista editions announced? Almost.
Microsoft recently posted a web page designed to test the Windows Vista help system that included incomplete information about the Windows Vista product line up. This page has since been removed as it was posted prematurely and was for testing purposes only. We will share more information about the Windows Vista line up in the coming weeks.
So it appears that we may not get a selection of 8 OS’ as originally thought. I don’t know about you, but I am sure 7 is more than enough! Check out the posting at Ars Technica.
RadioShack CEO Resigns
Edmondson said in a separate statement Monday that new leadership was needed so the company’s turnaround plan would have the best possible chance to succeed. The revamp announced Friday prompted mixed responses from analysts, who indicated the plan might be successful but, at that time, they doubted Edmondson’s ability to pull it off after it became clear he had lied about his education.
Radioshacks future is questionable at this point, especailly after recent store closings. It’s never a good sign when a CEO resigns, but hopefully things will get turned around. Check out the posting at Slashdot.
An Interview with Wikipedia’s Jimbo Wales
The Wikipedia Signpost, Wikipedia’s weekly in-house publication, is this week featuring an interview with Jimbo Wales. The questions, which were submitted by Wikipedia regulars, hit on subjects related to the Foundation, the budgeting and legal issues, the blocking of Wikipedia in China, as well as where Jimbo sees Wikipedia in the future.
This is a quality interview that goes into detail of recent happenings and future prospects. Check out the posting at Slashdot or go straight to the interview here.
Nikon Announces AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED
Mississauga, ON, February 21, 2006 – Nikon Canada Inc. today announced the AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED, the world’s first macro lens equipped with Nikon Silent Wave Motor (SWM) and Vibration Reduction (VR) systems. It offers a host of Nikon’s advanced optical features and technologies such as Nano Crystal Coat, Extra Low Dispersion (ED) glass and Internal Focusing (IF).
You can read the full press release here.